


bold as love

by Polexia_Aphrodite



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Darcy's kind of smart about people, Established Relationship, F/M, Multi, OT3, Protective Bucky Barnes, Sexual Content, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve is a worrier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 10:27:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polexia_Aphrodite/pseuds/Polexia_Aphrodite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she’d told them that she was pregnant, it was truly the last thing Steve had expected her to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Britt for beta-ing this and being The Best. 
> 
> This is just a little feel-y thing I wrote to experiment with what would happen if Darcy were pregnant in an established Steve/Darcy/Bucky relationship. The graphics I worked with while writing it are on my tumblr [here](http://hardboiledmeggs.tumblr.com/post/64756450052/as-my-anna-karina-avatar-might-indicate-i-have-a/).
> 
> Hope you all like it.

Every morning, Steve Rogers wakes up at six without an alarm, like clockwork. He prides himself on his body’s natural precision (even if Bucky, who shares his apartment, finds it insufferable). But this morning is different. Pale light fills the room, but he stays still, his eyelids heavy and his limbs leaden. 

It was last night, only a handful of hours ago, really, that Darcy had appeared on their doorstep, and they had let her in. They always do.

They’d ordered in from the Thai restaurant down the street and settled into the familiar, comfortable rhythm that’s existed between them for what feels like ages – teasing and flirting, spreading out on Bucky and Steve’s couch with Bucky’s hands on her legs and her head on Steve’s shoulder. 

It’s the kind of thing Steve has started to crave on a regular basis. He needs her – needs them both – more than he ought to. There’s something about the way Darcy smiles at him, the way she kisses him and laughs at his corny jokes, that makes him feel like the world on his shoulders is a little less heavy. He’s sure it’s the same for Bucky.

After an hour, she’d told them that she had come there with a purpose, that she had something she had to tell them. When she’d told them that she was pregnant, it was truly the last thing Steve had expected her to say.

In the wake of it – those two words ( _I’m pregnant_ ) – Bucky and Darcy had both looked at him for a long beat. As if he knew what to do now. As if he had a plan for _this_ , just like he has plans and strategies for everything else. But he had frozen up. Even though he could see something _lost_ bloom behind Darcy’s eyes, and even though he could see Bucky’s jaw clench, it wasn’t enough to jump him out of his stupor.

Bucky’d done all the talking, asking her in his usual, straightforward way if she was _sure_ (she was) and how far along she was (nine weeks), what her intentions were (to keep it) and if she had been to a doctor (she had). The questions all seemed right, like things they ought to know. Steve had just nodded with each of her answers. The unspoken truth hung between them: that there’s no way of knowing which of them is the father. Darcy had tried to give them some speech about how she didn’t expect anything from either them, but Bucky wouldn’t hear it.

In nearly a year – a _year_ – of this thing they’ve been doing – falling into bed together, kissing and fucking and getting in way over their heads – Steve’s never once felt a pang of remorse. Until now. It’s been years since he’s thought about the faith of his youth, but, in that moment, it had been all too easy to recall the disapproving specters of the nuns who had rapped his knuckles at St. Andrew’s. For the first time in too long, he’d wondered what his mother – stern but fair – would think if she could see him now.

Bucky must have seen the stricken look on his face, because he’d sent him to the kitchen to put the kettle on (Bucky's preference for tea over coffee is left over from his days prowling through Europe). He had insisted that Steve use the long-neglected lemon-ginger tea from the back of their cupboard. He’d said that it’d be good for Darcy’s stomach. Steve had wondered how the hell Bucky had known that. Steve doesn’t know any of this stuff.

When he’d returned, his hands filled with two mugs of hot tea and one of coffee for himself, Darcy was already curled up on their sofa next to Bucky, with her bare feet folded under her hips and her head on Bucky’s chest. Bucky had shot him a glare over the top of her head, and Steve had known what it meant: that he ought to shape up and give her – _their girl_ – what she needs.

Bucky turned the TV on to something trashy and forgettable, and the three of them sat together, mostly in silence. Parts of this feel familiar; Bucky had always been good at taking care of Steve when he was sick, back in the old days (the days Bucky doesn’t remember anymore), and Steve could already see Bucky giving Darcy the same mindful looks he used to give him.

Bucky’s always been good with women, good at understanding what they need and need to hear, and women have always gravitated towards him because of it. While Steve had sat stock-still on one end of the sofa, Bucky had held Darcy through reruns and late-night screenings of movies from the ‘80s. The two of them seemed so placid and calm; a part of him had wanted to shake them by the shoulders until they confessed that they were as stunned and confused as he was.

Steve had tried hard to hide the way his conscience prickled, the guilt that this new development stirred up in him. It’s hard to shake the feeling that he’s done something wrong. By the casual way he’s holding her, by the relaxed, open look on his face, Steve guesses that getting a girl pregnant out of wedlock doesn’t even rank on Bucky’s list of morally questionable acts. 

Instead of throttling them out of their passivity, Steve had concentrated all his efforts on trying to figure out what it meant: to be a father (or _maybe_ a father) when he had never had one of his own, when he had never thought it was possible for him – not with how dangerous his work is and how frequently he finds himself just a hair’s breadth between life and a grisly death at the hands of this week’s evil mastermind. Having a child never seemed like the responsible thing to do. He supposes that it still doesn’t seem responsible, but there’s nothing to be done about it now.

Finally, Darcy had fallen asleep and Bucky had carried her to bed. Steve turned off lights behind them, his bare feet padding on the hardwood of the hallway to their bedroom, just behind Bucky’s.

It’s usually Bucky who sleeps separately – who clings to the edge of the bed while Darcy and Steve curl around each other – but tonight it’s Steve who pulls away. When his eyes close, he sees Darcy with her back pressed to Bucky’s front, with Bucky’s natural arm wrapped tight around her waist.

In the morning, when his eyes open again, when he finally pushes past the sinking feeling in his chest and wakes up, it’s to the gentle rock of the mattress beneath him – beneath _them_. His head rolls to the right, and there they are.

Bucky lies between her legs, with his arms wound around her back. Cornflower-blue bedsheets cover them from the waist down, but Steve can make out the outline of Darcy’s legs, bent up around his waist, and the curve of Bucky’s backside has he moves in and out of her in slow, purposeful strokes.

Darcy’s t-shirt – soft, heather-gray cotton – is hitched up, sliding up the slope of her breasts towards her throat. The white undershirt Bucky fell asleep in is gone. Steve’s eyes run along the curves of bare flesh where their bodies meet, and he feels a jolt of arousal shoot through him. 

Bucky’s face is buried in the joint between her neck and shoulder; Steve can hear him murmuring something soft and solemn to her, but he can’t make out any words. Darcy’s eyes are squeezed shut.

He’s seen this more times than he can count – Bucky working her over until she shudders and falls apart around him – but suddenly, for a hot moment, Steve feels his gorge rise, feels like he should shove Bucky off of her for waking her up with this slow, easy fuck, as though _nothing_ had changed. _Hadn’t_ she changed? Hadn’t _everything_?

But then Darcy lets loose a long, shimmering breath, and the sound draws the pain and confusion out of him like venom from a snakebite. Both he and Bucky go still.

They both know what it’s like to make her moan and scream, but that sigh – that little sigh – means something different. More than lust, more than ecstasy, it means that she’s _happy_. 

Her hand slides across the expanse of bed between them and clutches Steve’s palm. He should have known she knew he was awake. Her fingers tighten around his as she comes, with Bucky squeezed between her thighs, with the fingers of her other hand clenched in his hair and her head tilted back on her pillow. The line of her neck is a perfect, pale arch, and it calls out to Steve.

He crosses the bed towards them in an instant; his lips meet the side of her throat. She smells like cherry and vanilla, like Bucky and him and their bed. Steve presses his face into her skin, into her hair, and he _feels_ more than _sees_ her smile. Next to him, Bucky groans and tightens his arms around her as he comes, too.

Through the haze of his own arousal, now a hard throb between his legs, barely concealed by dark flannel pajama pants, he’s dimly aware that Bucky has pulled his hips away from hers. Steve lifts his head from her shoulder enough to see Bucky’s loose, lusty grin.

“See, punk?” he says, flushed and breathless, holding Steve’s gaze, “Our girl ain’t made of glass.”

Bucky knows how to say a lot with a look, and this one is no exception. There’s a gentle rebuke in it, for how distant and wrapped up in himself Steve’s been, but there’s something kind and understanding, too.

Darcy frowns and gives a little huff. She taps Bucky on the shoulder and gives him a meaningful look of her own. Bucky’s better at being modern, and the two of them share a unique bond. Steve wonders how many silent communications they’ve shared about him in the last few hours.

“Gonna shower,” Bucky murmurs, pressing a kiss to Darcy’s cheek and leaning across her to knock Steve’s shoulder with his fist. 

Bucky shifts away, pulling the sheets with him, and Darcy is left exposed. If Steve hadn’t already been hard, the sight of her – all warm, soft curves and dark hair spread across pale sheets – would have done him in.

Bucky’s barely out of the room before she straddles him, with one knee on either side of his waist. She pulls his elastic waistband down to his knees, her hips lower, and the hard ridge of his erection, pressed in a line against his belly, fits lengthwise between her folds. She’s impossibly warm and wet, from what’s left of her spendings and Bucky’s, and Steve feels his brain short-circuit; his toes curl and his legs bow. 

She rolls her hips, gliding up and down the length of him, until he chokes out her name. He tries to stay still, but he can’t help that his hips stutter upwards. His hands skim up her thighs and wrap around her hips. Darcy tugs off her t-shirt and tosses it to the floor.

He manages a “ _Darcy, please_ ,” and she reaches between them; it only takes a tiny movement to push him inside her. Steve groans; the muscles of his stomach clench as he thrusts his hips up. 

Now that he can get a good look at her, he can see that she’s barely changed. Perhaps her breasts are a little larger, but the curve of her stomach is the same as it’s always been. If she hadn’t told him the truth, he never would have guessed it.

“You’re sure this is okay?”

She just smiles down at him. “Yeah.”

“Come here.”

As much as he’d like to watch her breasts bounce and sway with each roll of her hips, the only thing he wants more is to get his arms around her. She leans down over him and his hands cup either side of her face, soft tendrils of hair winding around his fingers, before his arms slide across her bare back. She kisses him, slow and sloppy, morning breath be damned, as her hips rise and fall against his.

There’s just barely enough room for Steve to slide his hands between them and strum her clit with the rough pads of his fingers. Darcy answers his attentions with a moan and a smile. She pulls his t-shirt up, just enough to run a hand along his bare stomach.

Even though the wet, hot clutch of her around him is enough to make his head swim and his body go weak, he lets Darcy work herself on his cock and hand, answering her movements with thrusts of his own, until she shudders and grips his shoulders, her innermost walls clenching and fluttering as she comes. After she lets loose her last cry, Darcy meets Steve’s gaze, and it’s too, too much. He empties into her with a keening sob that he barely recognizes as his own. 

They lie together with Darcy’s head on his chest, letting their breathing slow; Steve’s still hard inside her – it’ll take at least another round before he won’t be – but she slides off of him and to the side, her arm winding around his waist. Steve pulls his pants back up past his hips.

She looks up at him, and he cranes his neck to see her.

“I love you.”

It’s something she’s never said to him before – never said to either of them, at least as far as he knows. Steve swallows, willing away the heavy feeling in his throat. Her eyes don’t leave his.

“I _love_ you,” she repeats, emphasizing each word as though she thinks he didn’t hear her.

“I love you, too,” he gasps, and it’s true. It’s _true_.

They lie together for a long while, until Darcy’s slow, even breaths tell him that she’s drifted off.

Just as it strikes Steve that Bucky’s been gone longer than it takes him to shower, he returns, dressed in dark jeans and a crisp, half-buttoned shirt. He flops onto the bed beside Darcy and she stirs awake; he smells like soap and cigarette smoke. He nibbles at the side of her neck until she laughs and squirms and pushes him away.

“How are you, sweetheart?” he asks.

She gives him a lazy smile. “Good. So good.”

Bucky grins and looks over her at Steve. “And you, sweetheart?”

Steve rolls his eyes.

Steve’s a little shocked by Bucky’s lack of apprehension. He’s never thought of Bucky as a father before, but the easiness with which he’s handled this situation makes Steve wonder if he’s thought of _himself_ this way.

“I don’t understand how you both can be so—“ he starts, but stalls, “Aren’t you…I don’t know—”

“Terrified?” Darcy offers, “Yes. And I think we’re supposed to be.”

Steve frowns.

“Does my life seem well-planned to you?” He looks down at her in confusion. Darcy licks her lips and keeps going. 

“I went to school to become an environmental lobbyist. I took an internship I wasn’t qualified for, and now I work for fucking _SHIELD_ ,” she rolls her eyes, “I do things on faith. Faith that, somehow, it’ll work out. And sometimes it doesn’t – sometimes it _really_ doesn’t. But you’d be amazed how often everything turns out just fine.”

She rolls onto her back. The fingers of her right hand worry at the hem of Bucky’s shirt.

“If I’d done anything different, I might not have gotten to have this.”

“Will you find out who…” Steve swings a finger between he and Bucky, “I mean, which—“

Darcy shakes her head. “Not now. Maybe…maybe someday. I don’t think it matters now. Does it?”

“No,” Bucky says firmly, and, even though he isn’t looking at Steve, Steve hears the note in it that’s left for him, “Whatever you want. However you want it.”

It hits him that this is how this whole thing happened in the first place – the three of them, together. Something in Steve’s chest swells uncontrollably, but this time, instead of choking him with fear and doubt, the thing that renders him speechless is an endless sort of gratitude.

“C’mon. Time for breakfast,” Bucky grabs each of them by an arm and pulls.

“Lewis is eatin’ for two now.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a little follow-up to the original story, expanding on what happened between Bucky and Darcy at two points Steve left them: on the couch in the beginning, and before he woke up near the end.
> 
> Hope you guys like it.

When Bucky sends Steve to the kitchen for tea, he leaves behind Bucky and Darcy, wrapped in the fog of what Darcy had just told them – the thing that would ensure that nothing would ever be _exactly_ the same between the three of them again. Bucky had seen how it had affected Steve; he had seen the dark, torn-up part of him come out in the hard line of his shoulders and the stiff clench of his jaw.

Getting him out of there – to the kitchen or down the hall or, hell, _anywhere_ – before Darcy saw it, too, had quickly become Bucky’s top priority.

“I broke Captain America,” Darcy says as soon as he’s gone, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her face buried in her hands.

“You didn’t,” Bucky groans and rubs his flesh-and-bone hand across his face, scrubbing at the stubble along his jaw. “Doesn’t matter what century he’s in, that idiot still can’t talk to women.”

Darcy looks up sharply, flashing a reproachful look, “That’s not true.”

Bucky cocks an eyebrow at her, as if to say, _Isn’t it?_ , and Darcy purses her lips and shrugs.

“Oughta be nice to him,” she murmurs, “This isn't his fault.”

Darcy sees Bucky’s face go slack, just for a moment, and looks away quickly. It’s cowardly, but she’s not ready to see what he’ll look like when the implication hits.

Bucky furrows his brow. Something crawls up his spine that almost feels like _hope_. He pushes it down. Hard.

“You know somethin’ you’re not sayin,’ Lewis?”

She shrugs again, but she still can’t look at him. “I…I don’t know anything for sure.”

It’s obvious enough what she means: Steve and Bucky aren’t always on the same missions at the same time; it’s not uncommon for one of them to be left behind to stay with her and make love to her. By the cagey look on her face, Bucky guesses that Darcy knows enough to have a solid hypothesis about which one of them knocked her up. 

Darcy shifts and casts a wary glance behind them. 

“Don’t worry about Steve. He’s gonna be fine,” Bucky says, but his voice wavers. “I’ll talk to him.”

She shakes her head, “No. Let me. Tomorrow. I’m too tired tonight.”

Darcy lets loose a long breath and leans back into the couch; her shoulders slump. Behind them, they can hear gentle sounds of shuffling feet and clanking dishes coming from Steve in the kitchen.

Bucky’s right hand fiddles with the mechanical joints of his left. He looks up, and their eyes meet for a long moment.

“You doin’ okay?”

She swallows and straightens against the cushions, “’m fine.”

It’s hardly a convincing performance. Bucky’s eyes bore into hers and she flinches. “I’m…okay. I’m still here.”

Bucky nods. It’s a relief, Darcy thinks, to have this kind of shorthand with him.

“You’re not goin’ to any more doctor’s appointments by yourself,” he tells her, his voice low and his eyes on hers, “You take me or Steve. Understand?”

She tries to scoff, “And if you’re both out on a mission?”

He shakes his head, “It’s not going to happen like that. Not anymore.”

Darcy looks over at him, and her expression is wide open. She’s filled with the kind of sincerity that used to make him cringe, back when he was the Winter Soldier and sneered at vulnerability. But now, as James Barnes (because that’s what she calls him – _James_ ) all he can feel towards her is a kind of affection so intense and familiar, it makes his chest ache.

“Okay,” she sighs, because it seems important, and it’s the least she can give him.

He nods again; his face is an unreadable mask.

“C’mere.” 

She leans against his left side and his bionic arm folds around her shoulders. Darcy can always feel how delicately he handles her with it. He once told her that _it_ – that intricate set of metal and wires slotted into his shoulder socket – made him feel less than human. But Darcy refuses to believe that. Now, curled up on the sofa next to him, she threads her fingers through his, cold steel though they may be.

“Darcy—“ he starts; her face softens and tilts towards his. She presses her hand against the solid, warm wall of his chest, pushing and leaning up to see him. It’s so rare that he uses her first name, even after all these months together. She waits for him to say something else, but instead his face clenches; his mouth opens and slams shut. 

If she didn’t know him better, she’d think he was on the verge of tears. But he’s _James Barnes_ , and breaking down isn’t something she thinks he can (let himself) do. So he presses his lips to her forehead and hauls her against him, until her face is pressed into his chest and her arms are wound around his waist.

“Love you,” he whispers against her hair, and she stills. A warm glow spreads through her chest, down her arms and all the way to her fingertips. She’s about to shift to look back up at him when Steve steps into the living room.

Steve passes them each a mug of tea and keeps a cup of coffee for himself. Everything about him is closed off: his face, his posture, the nervous strain of muscles in his neck. It sets Darcy on edge: the idea of him so upset. But Bucky just tugs her tight against him, and she tells herself that she’ll fix it in the morning. 

*

Darcy wakes up with Bucky pressed against her back and his arm looped around her waist. She vaguely remembers him carrying her to their bedroom, stripping her out of her pants and sweater and crawling into bed behind her. She can feel him breathe deep, and she knows he’s still asleep. Steve’s told her that he only sleeps like this – still and quiet – when she’s there, when all three of them are together (when no one is missing). 

She turns in his arms to face him, and she only feels a little guilty when he wakes up and gives her a sleepy smile. Even though Steve’s asleep behind her, it feels like they’re alone – or, at least, as alone as they can be when the three of them are together. She shifts her arm between them until her hand is spread wide on his chest.

“What you said last night,” she whispers, “was it because—“

“No.” His voice is quiet but stern; he knows well enough where that sentence was going. “Been around too long to say things I don’t mean.”

She nods, then shifts towards him, pressing her lips to the downturned corner of his mouth. Bucky’s hand slides up the soft fabric of her shirt, tracing the line of her spine, past the sloping curve of her side and up to her shoulders. 

Darcy smiles against his skin, “I love you, too.”

Bucky kisses her for a long time, running his hands through her hair and down her body, curving his palm against cleft between her thighs, sighing when he feels the heat of her through her panties. Without waiting for her to prompt him, he pulls his shirt over his head and sends it sailing to the floor. Even though Bucky’s already on top of her, even though the hard push of his erection against her hip sends a flood of warmth between her legs, Darcy forces herself to think clearly. 

“What about—“ she looks over at Steve, and Bucky follows her gaze. All they can see of him is his broad back, covered by a thin slate-grey t-shirt, and his rumpled hair on the pillow. “Should we let him sleep?”

Darcy shifts her gaze to Bucky; she loves the way he looks at Steve, like he can’t live without him.

“Nah. Let him wake up,” Bucky turns back to her and grins, pulling up the hem of her shirt, “Let’s get this started.”


End file.
